How to Handle a Relationship if you Come from Different Cultures

Host: What if you are the same race, speak the same language, but come from a different culture or country?

Gloria MacDonald: This is really the closest of all the different levels of intercultural and interracial relationships. So we are talking about if you come from the same race you are going to look the same and that was our first thing. You speak the same language so you are going to sound the same. But maybe you are a slightly different culture so you might act somewhat differently and you might think somewhat differently. I am a perfect example of this. I am an American. I live in Canada. My husband is a Canadian. You can't get two cultures. I don't believe there are two cultures on the face of the earth that are closer to that and frankly, I live in Toronto so I can drive an hour to an hour and a half to the U.S. border. So we look the same. We sound almost exactly the same. Slight difference is a couple of words here and there but not a big deal.

For example, I would say, "I went to college." He would say, "I went to University." I would say, "I go to the restroom or the ladies room," and someone in Canada would say, "I go to the washroom." I have actually trained myself to use "Canadian vocabulary" so I fit in and its little things but I have trained myself to say, "I went to University. Where is the washroom? " And things like that so that I am not detected as an outsider because again, don't forget that subconscious mind goes back to where they different red alert. This is someone foreign.

So my husband and I are almost as close as you could possibly get in terms of being the same race. We are both Caucasian. We are both Anglo-Saxon, European roots a whole mixture of things. We speak the same language. We sound almost identical but we do come from different places, different countries and it's amazing there are just little nuances nothing huge that creates any friction for us at all, but there are differences and I am amazed at how as an American there is something about my upbringing, my culture that I do think differently than a Canadian.

Canadians tends to be more reserved. Just a little example, but still even with this type of a situation you can run into although the differences won't be huge and the conflicts probably won't be huge, you can run into a challenge with where are you going to live. Whose country are you going to live in? Whose family are you going to spend holidays with? Where are you going to raise your children? What co-inheritance are they going to be closer to? So there are still issues that arise and things to think about.


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